Word: sectarians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...been nearly two years since they fled their neighborhood, al-Dora, after al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists killed the wife and son of Hammadi's brother. His friends and fellow refugees in Damascus warned him that Baghdad was still too dangerous, with dozens being killed daily in sectarian tit-for-tat attacks. But Hammadi, 46, was counting on the increased U.S. troop presence to calm things down. "Nobody can stand against the power of the American military," he says. "I thought that once they increased their forces, the [terrorists] would not stand a chance...
...following spring, when an all-out sectarian war broke out between Shi'ites and Sunnis, the Mahdi Army was blamed for much of the violence. The militias specialized in the kidnap and gruesome torture of Sunnis; hundreds of mutilated bodies were left in the streets and in garbage dumps. The militias began a year-long campaign of sectarian cleansing in many of Baghdad's mixed neighborhoods, driving out tens of thousands of Sunnis...
...journalists who have covered this country through its darkest months, the barrage of mortars and the smoke plumes rising out of the Green Zone brought to mind Baghdad of a year ago, when the Iraqi capital was wracked by sectarian violence and terrorist attacks. For many Baghdadis, the violence served as a unnerving reminder that the improvements that have come with the "surge" are fragile, easily shattered. Said Mithal Alusi, a Green Zone resident and member of Iraq's parliament: "In a minute, in a second, just like that... we can fall into hell again...
...growing number of U.S. military commanders have come to recognize that stabilizing the insurgent and sectarian violence in Iraq necessitates dealing with population stability and civil support. As the army’s new operations manual itself states, “Winning battles and engagements is important, but alone is not sufficient. Shaping the civil situation is just as important to success.” Battles are one thing. But how do you “win” the hearts and minds of local Iraqis...
...speak not only of our American peers, who have made the ultimate sacrifice in their military service, but also of Iraqi peers who had far less choice concerning when and how American bombs and sectarian strife would wrench their lives, families, and futures apart. By some estimates, of the hundreds of thousands Iraqis killed in the conflict, a disproportionate number were youth. This is to say nothing of the millions more who have lost much hope for a stable, educated future as they were forced to flee into hasty exile...